The SurfaceWorld show takes place at the NEC, Birmingham, on 24 – 26 September 2013. I’ll
repeat that just in case you missed it: The Surface World show takes place at
the NEC, Birmingham, on 24 – 26 September
2013.
Now I’m not
just saying this to get some cheap publicity for our company’s stand. Just for
the record we will be there as always and would be delighted to meet as many of
you as possible. On the contrary, I am reminding you all for the benefit of a
successful event and for the good of our industry in general.
For the past
ten years, the show has been held at the beginning of November and has steadily
grown in size and visitor numbers, being particularly busy on the last two
occasions in 2009 and 2011. There is no doubt that there are risks inherent in
a change of date. For a busy industry like ours, with very little spare human
capacity, visitors become easily conditioned to a regular date in the calendar.
They will have it in their real diary, Outlook organiser or in the back of
their minds for many months, or even years in advance.
The change
of date to September, when some may still be on holiday, the cricket season is
still in full swing and the Last Night of the Proms has not yet happened,
requires a great deal of PR, communications and good old-fashioned arm twisting
from the organisers to get the punters flowing to Birmingham.
All of us
that exhibited in 2007 experienced the consequences of just a slight change of
date, in that case to the last week of October. The clash with half term week
took its toll in terms of visitor numbers and results.
My company, Riley Surface World had an even worse experience when we exhibited at USETEC, Cologne in 2012. This
is a long-established and successful trade show for used industrial plant and
machinery with an international audience. Until last year, it was always held
in the third week of April to coincide with the Hanover Fair, the giant
industrial show with a global reach. This enabled the huge number of regular
visitors from all around the world to take in both shows in the same week.
Last year,
some bright spark decided to move it back to early March to coincide with
another large industrial exhibition that was in Cologne at the same time,
thinking that there would be a natural synergy between the two shows. They
could not have been more wrong!
Visitor
numbers were down by more than half, as many regular attendees had clearly not
got the message about the change of date. Furthermore, the expected overlap of
visitors from the neighbouring exhibition never materialised. Either they did
not have time to visit both shows, or the prospect of viewing used machinery
was not to their liking.
And just to
rub salt in the wounds of dispirited exhibitors, the hoteliers of Cologne had
chosen that very week to double or even triple their room rates. It’s what they
call market forces!
The surface
finishing industry is in a very good place to take advantage of all the good
things that are happening in the UK economy. Apparently, there was no double-dip
recession last year, manufacturing output is showing a steady increase and we
are now producing more cars per year than the French. As Raymond Blanc would
say: ‘Voila!’
With all the
good news around, don’t let’s forget to support our only local, specialist
trade exhibition. And just in case you haven’t got the message, Surface World
is on September 24 – 26. See you there!
